From "Souvenirs" to "Recollections": Amelia Opie and the Practice of Self-translation

As scholars have shown, Amelia Opie's political views altered over time from radicalism to moderation; however, her retrospective travel memoir "Recollections of a Visit to Paris in 1802" (1831-32) frustrates straightforward readings of her increasing conservatism. By the time "Recollections" was published, Opie was in her sixties, a Quaker, and primarily a didactic writer and yet in her travelogue, she reflects sympathetically upon her past radical leanings. A comparison of "Recollections" and "Souvenirs d'une visite a Paris en 1802," a draft manuscript of "Recollections" written in French, reveals Opie's practice of self-translation. In revising the French "Souvenirs" into the English "Recollections," Opie addressed temporal, linguistic, cultural, and generic changes between 1802 and 1831 by crafting a traveler persona that combines her older maturity and her youthful naivete. This fluidity of persona and history in "Recollections" provided a framework for Opie to construct didactic stories about foreign exchange.